J Paul Johnson
To watch a Dardenne brothers film is to become so deeply immersed in and engaged by their signature storytelling it is all to easy to forget you are watching a movie. There’s little that feels arranged or manipulated; there are no stars posturing or posing; there’s no, or next to, nondiegetic music nor intrusive edits, no narrative conceits or tricks. There is only a story and its characters, unfolding gradually, subtly, so realistically in front of you it feels as if what happens is in the next room or just next door—even when, as is the case with their most recent film, Young Mothers, the story is set on the streets of Liège, Belgium, in my case half a world away. The Dardennes’ is a cinema without the appearance of artifice, though it is as carefully and conscientiously crafted as any in the medium’s history. With Young Mothers, their first film since 2002’s Tori and Lokita, they turn their eye to the plight of Belgian teens tested by becoming mothers at an age way, way too young.
We meet each of them in turn, close-up and without much exposition save for dialogue. Jessica (Babette Verbeek), well along in a pregnancy she likely cannot keep, grew up in a loving foster family. But her condition seems to give rise to a turbulence of emotions she cannot fully fathom: how could her own biological mother have let her go? Increasingly distressed and unable to process her feelings, she becomes obsessed with finding and confronting her biological mother even as she nears giving birth.
Jessica lives in a shelter with the other primary characters, each of whom has already given birth and has her own unique conflicts. Perla (Lucie Laruelle) already a caring mother, but her boyfriend, the bio-dad (Gunter Duret), is a flake; she’s desperate—too desperate obviously—to keep him in tow, even as the possibility that she may need to raise her child alone becomes more and more evident. Like Jessica, Perla is more than a little prone to outbursts and unable to process conflict with a level head; despite her good intentions and caring qualities, she’s simply too young to handle what life has thrown at her.
Julie (Elsa Houben), meanwhile has in her boyfriend Dylan (Jef Jacobs) what Perla does not: a loving, caring, supportive, and emotionally mature partner, committed to their baby’s care. And while Julie effaces an outward confidence, she’s still struggling with a drug dependency that threatens her and her baby’s health. Every day is a challenge of a different sort for her.
The fourth young mother, Ariane (Janaina Halloy Fokan), grew up in an impoverished home with an abusive step-father. She’s fiercely determined to protect her new baby no matter what it costs her. Her own mother, trapped in a cycle of poverty and abuse, thinks that she, her daughter Ariane, and the new baby can live together and somehow transcend their past, but it’s clear that that’s a pipe dream, and young Ariane, resolute and determined, has to make the most difficult decision of all to give her daughter a future. (There is a fifth young mother, Saïma, played by Namia Hilmi, though her story is less central than the others.)
While Young Mothers is, obviously, full of the kinds of challenges and conflicts these young women face, it’s also full of optimism. The four are, despite their youth, cognizant of the cycles of neglect, abuse, and abandonment that have defined their lives, and they are to a person determined to confront and break free of those. At moments the film is by turns crushing, sobering, saddening, uplifting, and exhilarating. Much credit goes to the cast, especially the four young principals Laruelle, Houben, Verbeek, and Halloy Fokan, who are each completely convincing in a wide range of emotional states. Co-writers and co-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne rely often on non-professional actors, and from a casting call of over 300 applicants, selected the four with at most only modest acting experience, some on film for the first time. The Dardennes are without peer in eliciting from their young actors expressive, naturalistic performances. Those cast as their elders, particularly Christelle Cornil as Ariane’s mother, are equally excellent.
For as tightly restrictive as the Dardennes’ neo-neorealist cinema may be in technical terms, their films are as full of emotion as any of the medium’s great melodramas. In Young Mothers, for all the complexities and challenges its narrative charts, a sweet moment of magic is earned at its end, when a simple piece of music played by a former teacher brings the plot full circle and imbues the film with a rich emotional resonance. As naturalistic as its plot may seem, it’s perfectly scripted. Winner of last year’s Best Screenplay prize at Cannes, Young Mothers ends on a sublime and simple note, one that delicately, delightfully conveys its optimism for its teen subjects as they approach their uncertain adulthoods.
